Related Articles

He was sitting in the passenger seat with his hand resting on the wound-down window ledge when the car scraped a wooden post at the exit to the car park. Mr Reynolds' hand was taken off instantly.

His friends saved his life by applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

He said: "It was very nasty. It was amputated in a second.

"Obviously I couldn't join the Army any more"

The i-Limb was developed by a Scottish company, Touch Bionics, and has won awards for its innovative technology. The total cost including the hand itself and the fitting is about £30,000.

Mr Reynolds's older brother Richard saw a television report about the i-LIMB and contacted the manufacturer.

The firm was still working on a prototype at the time, but after a number of tests and meetings with prosthetic specialists, Mr Reynolds had the i-LIMB fitted in February last year.

He said: "The most amazing thing about it was how quickly I adapted to it. People always ask how it's changed my life, but there's no specific thing.

"It's the hundreds of everyday things you take for granted, which I can do again, like peeling a potato, catching a ball, holding a bottle of water.

"I'm incredibly grateful."

He added: "It's so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it, and even swing a racket. All I have to so is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically."

Mr Reynolds said his disability has not stopped him playing sport, his greatest passion, nor has it crushed his spirit.

He still plays rugby, but makes sure he removes the expensive appendage first.

He said: "I love sport, I still play rugby, I still play squash, but I take the i-LIMB off first."

Time Magazine named the i-LIMB as one of the Top 50 inventions of 2008 and Touch Bionics won the Limbless Association's Prosthetic Product Innovation Award for 2008 for the product. American soldiers injured in action are among those who have been given it.